Reissued oldies include Locomotive ‘Rudi’s In Love’ (EMI 5033), Millie ‘My Boy Lollipop’ (Island WIP 6574), Desmond Dekker ‘Israelites’ (Creole CR 199), Pioneers ‘Long Shot Kick De Bucket’ / Harry J ‘Liquidator’ (Trojan TROT 9063), Michael Jackson ‘Ben’ (Motown TMG 1165), Billy Paul ‘Me & Mrs Jones’ (Philadelphia Int’l PIR 8202), Booker T & The MGs ‘Time Is Tight’ (Stax 2001), Johnny Johnson & The Bandwagon ‘Breaking Down The Walls Of Heartache’ (Epic EPC 8315) . . . Fern Kinney is 111bpm . . . Shalamar ‘Socket’ is also on a strange disjointed 7in-only remix . . . Motown plan a segued six hit Supremes 12in medley (hopefully they’ll not use the awful US version here) flipped by ‘Love Hangover’ . . . Roy Ayers ‘Running Away’ / ‘Can’t You See Me’ should be a UK 12in soon (and at last!) . . . Capitol are repromoting Domenic Troiano ‘We All Need Love’ 12in as they think the tempo is now right for today . . . Twennynine’s old 120bpm ‘Peanut Butter’ (now a US 7in hit) goes great with ‘Stomp’! . . . Eddy Grant’s upcoming newie is in the Bobby Thurston / Bros Johnson groove . . . Tom “Buns” Holland recommends the direct-cut re-recording of Lee Ritenour ‘Sugarland Express’ (JVC LP) . . . Sugarhill Gang’s visit seems to have been less than a success, what with their stage act being forcibly curtailed at certain venues, and temper tantrums a recurring feature . . . Greg Davies’s Disco Forum ‘80 is now set for Sunday, June 1 in an expanded form but still for £2 – and the emphasis on mailing lists seems to have increased (yawn) . . . Thames Valley DJA hold a Tenpin Bowling Tournament this Sunday afternoon (9) at Wokingham King of Clubs . . . Paul Anthony is running a coach to the Slough allniter on March 21 from Walsall and Birmingham, details on Walsall 28447 . . . Chris Hill mischievously having created a new Northern-type oldies demand, but this time for jazz, we can expect the likes of Donald Byrd and Lonnie Smith to be joined in the chart by other classic rarities . . . Martin Platts (Blackburn) has observed an increase in kids ballroom dancing to old big bands, which could tie in with a revival of tails as a male fashion . . . Chris Brown says thanks for the photos and he doesn’t need any more as the “Family Album” is now being printed to be ready in time for Knebworth . . . Peel’s latest Sponsor-Disc precedes the “get into Orbit – sugar free gum” jingle with Apollo 11’s moonshot countdown, but the featured music’s really naff this time – why not just do the jingles on their own? . . . Juliannas jockettes Nicky MacKenzie (Kensington Tingles) and Sally Wardle (Marylebone Cinecitta Roma) had a few of us home for pina coladas on Friday, whereupon Chris Brown lost his cigarettes (he said), Steve Walsh shrugged off his concrete overcoat to touch up his eye makeup, and Fatman snored off to sleep – still, their music choice was good! . . . Ken Norton starts spinning pop downstairs at Mayfair Gullivers this week . . . Phil Black funks Tonyrefall Meadow Vale Country Club in Glamorgan Wednesday thru Saturday now . . . Arbie sez Azymuth was never THAT popular in North Notts, and is now selling in Retford Woolies for 20p – where indeed was it truthfully THAT popular anyway? . . . G. Paul Sharpe (Elland George & Dragon) tried three record shops for Alton & Johnny and they all got a “no such number as yet” reply from Polygram’s computer . . . Tim Lott’s excellent article on Solar was worth reading last week . . . Carl Sutton says funk lives at Swansea Cinderellas on Fri/Saturdays, and he’s never mixed better since he put his records in BPM order last year following this page’s BPM advice . . . FUNK IS ALIVE!

UK Newies

EUGENE RECORD: ‘Fan The Fire’ (from LP ‘Welcome To My Fantasy’, Warner Bros. K 56639)
Long overdue UK release actually couldn’t be more timely as this dynamite 118-115-113-114-116-117 bpm backbeat smacker is bang in the Whispers/Walden/Prince-type bag and is now exploding anew so how about a 12in, then? Also useful are the slower smacking c. 104 bpm ‘Your Love (Ain’t Nothin’ Like It)’, fast 0-126-130-132 bpm ‘Where Are You’, accelerating 104-108 bpm ‘Pain For Pleasure’ and squeaky 122-125 bpm title track.

BRASS CONSTRUCTION: ‘Movin’’ (UA 12-UP 617)
Epoch-making monster from four years ago now for the first time on 12in, the 119-121-123-124-123 bpm groover (mixers should note the quiet 5 bar intro picks up the rhythm on the “3” beat) is flipped by the jerkier 108(intro)-111-112 bpm ‘Changin’’.

RONNIE LAWS: ‘Young Child’ (UA 12-UP 619)
The LP version turns out to have been edited together a few times to make this 8:51 12in of the now 0-134-132-130-134-132-130-134-130 bpm Isleys-type sax squawker.

LEO’S SUNSHIPP: ‘Give Me The Sunshine’ (from LP ‘We Need Each Other’, US Lyon’s L-1500)
Unearthed by Disc Empire and spread through the mafia by Pete Tong, this 1978 set by Kenny Stover and friends is basically four soul tunes repeated in both vocal and instrumental versions, the killers being this rather Lowrell-like 92-96-96-97bpm jogger (92-96-97-98bpm instr) and 102-101-102bpm ‘I’m Back For More’ (102-103bpm instr), the 97-98bpm ‘Madame Butterfly’ also being similar. Oddity appeal should make it a monster.

RANDY BROWN: ‘The Next Best Thing To Being There’ (from LP ‘Midnight Desire’, US Chocolate City CCLP 2011)
Sensational deep soul set by a caressingly wailing then hoarsely growling voice reminiscent of Al Green, Jerry Butler, Isaac Hayes, James Carr, Teddy Pendergrass and Peabo Bryson . . . some pedigree! This exquisite 31bpm smoocher has a telephone conversation and thunder effects, while ‘We Ought To Be Doin’ It’ is a Lowrell-like slow 42/84bpm jolter, ‘Love Formula 69’ a happy explicitly-worded 111-112bpm balon [sic] and ‘Do You Love Me?’ a beat-shifting 97(intro)-94-93-94bpm swayer, other goodies being the tender 14-28/55bpm ‘You’re So Good’ and jogging 109-108-109bpm ‘Without You’, but the faster 111-110-111bpm ‘Love Be With You’, 118bpm ‘With Your Love’ and 120bpm ‘Things That I Could Do To You’ are more straight soul than disco.

HERBIE HANCOCK: ‘I Thought It Was You’ (from LP ‘Directstep’, Japanese CBS/Sony 30AP 1032)
Expensive at around £13.75, this direct-cut 15:32 re-recording starts at 123bpm and reaches some great vocoder scatting towards the end, with accompaniment from such as Webster Lewis, Bill Summers and Alphonse Mouzon.

KALYAN: ‘Hot Tea’ (from LP ‘Kalyan All The Way “Live”’, US RCA AFL1-3514)
Good jogging 98-93-98-99-100bpm jazz instrumental combines the Alpert and Spyro Gyra formulae with steel drums providing some of the latter, ‘Dry River Breakdown’ being a happy 121-123bpm Caribbean rattler with lacklustre singing.

The Yanks have an abbreviation for it, so here’s our own DORC . . . Dance Orientated Rock Chart, DORC for short!

This seems like a good way of tidying up the non-funk/soul/jazz/disco things that are certainly being danced to in many places but which don’t fit comfortably into the more specialised UK disco chart. Hopefully by putting separate emphasis on this pop hit type of material we may encourage a wider spectrum of jocks to contribute charts, although I suspect that the regular UK singles sales chart will be just as reliable a barometer.

If you think of Ian Dury’s Reasons To Be Cheerful as a Rap record, that was before all those, and not released long after Fatback’s King Tim III said to be the first rap record but of course rapping goes way further back than that. Excellent site this btw, and I’m more than addicted! All this great music from back in the day is the best of all time.

WOW a tsunami of new releases reviewed this week and such an embarrassment of riches- jazz funk features heavily as you would expect as this really was the golden era for so many great tracks. The GAP Band “Oops” gets a mention- of course it would become a phenomenon over the coming months along with the notorious rowing dance! The nations taste in dance music was becoming more sophisticated ( forget Liquid Gold, the Nolans etc), a personal fave was Mystic Merlin- still sounds awesome.